keep your faith alive

So today’s sermon [February 22, 2009, yes this is older material than you think since what I do is I save drafts before publishing my posts] was about the story of Abraham and his son Isaac. I’m sure a lot people have heard this story in one way or another. Abraham had the sense of hearing, obedience, trust, and faithfulness.

Abraham and Isaac

The following is from Genesis 22:

1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”
3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.
9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. ” Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it a s a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”
15 The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time  16 and said, “I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

Did you ever wonder… Abraham was tested to kill his one and only beloved son, while God was placed in the same situation where He brought us Jesus, His one and only beloved son, and placed Him on the cross, FOR US? So Abraham was a man of strong faith, in fact, how many of us are even capable of following something like that? Furthermore, if you read this passage closely, you will notice that the NEXT MORNING after he was told this daunting task, Abraham prepared to go to where the Lord told him to go. He didn’t hesitate, Abraham didn’t question, he didn’t say, “wait… God you just provided me with my one and only son and I am so ridiculously old now!? How can you possibly ask me to just sacrifice him as a burnt offering?” However, notice also that, when Abraham told his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then WE will come back to you.” Abraham didn’t say I will come back to you, he said WE will come back to you. Abraham has such a strong relationship with God that he felt that there was still hope in his heart that God will not let him continue. Even if this was in the back of his mind and just piercing his very heart as they walked up that mountain, he obeyed and honoured God’s command. I would also like to mention, that Abraham was not able to tell Isaac RIGHT AWAY what was to take place in just a few steps. When Isaac asked and wondered where is the lamb to be sacrificed as a burnt offering, Abraham was able to encourage by faith and the strong relationship between father and son, to go onward.

Imagine now, Abraham was just in tears as he held that knife in his hand and calming himself before going on with the sacrifice. In our lives today, I wonder how many things we are willing to sacrifice? If you can also think logically, where does God hit you the most? He hits you where it’s personal. God wants to have this personal relationship with us. The same God that Abraham loved and obeyed faithfully is the same God I love, the same God that loves you, the same God that wants so eagerly to know you, He wants us to know Him so badly. This desire, this love, the unconditional love that God gives me and to every single one of us, it is something that we need to really experience in our lives. So I ask, what is it that you love so dearly on this Earth? Who is it that you love so dearly today and think of all the time? Can you take that thing or person and sacrifice it because God wants to placed FIRST in your heart? Pretty difficult don’t you think? Most of us prize and are just so occupied with the things and people around our daily lives that we don’t even consider whether or not we should even bother to place God anywhere in our lives.

Abraham claims, “On the mountain the LORD will provide.” It never ceases to amaze me. God definitely provides everything we ever need. He provides it at the most perfect timing. Have you found anyone or anything that can provide anything to you at all the right times? I remember just needing someone to talk to sometimes and I just walk into someone that had some free time. It’s just so amazing. No it’s not coincidence, there are many more things that God provides. We just simply need to open up our eyes and see it.

So we’ve all heard of hearing, obedience, trust, and faithfulness. These are the main themes that Abraham shows us and is an example of great faith. The application that we can take from this in our own daily lives are: we need to have a relationship with God [how many times have I mentioned this in my blog? haha], second is we need to have DEDICATION in CHRIST, lastly we need to be able to privately minister to ourselves before we can minister in public.

The first requirement is the basis of Christianity. It isn’t a religion as most people normally perceive it as. I am not ‘religious’, I just love the God that loves me so much. He’s someone I can talk to anytime I want. He’s always there. He’s never late and He’s always on time. A relationship with God is something so hard to swallow for most non-believers. I sure had a hard time following along even though I have lived in a Christian family. Also, I would like to add that although there are so many denominations of Christianity, I don’t “label” or affiliate myself with a particular one. I will tell you straight up that I am a Christian and I love my Father from above. It’s a hard thing to understand for most people because they would think that “you’re crazy” or “how do you start a relationship like that…?” So then, I suppose you might wonder, how did I start it? Well, first of all, let’s take a look at the passage again. Abraham had a strong relationship with God. Not only this, Isaac also had a strong relationship with God. I mean honestly, what kind of a teenager would say so easily, EASILY, agree to, “okay dad, you can kill me for God.” This task that Abraham was asked of, it takes TWO people. The relationship between not only Abraham and the Father was strong, Abraham had a loving relationship with his son as well. Isaac himself also understood what is required, he knows that his father is faithful to God. For Isaac to easily agree to this sacrificial offering, Isaac had to have a strong relationship with God. So we ask how do we make a relationship with God and how did I do it?

I had a struggling start with this relationship. The first step is to simply accept Jesus Christ as your personal saviour. I believe, I did this twice. The first time, I honestly did not fully understand it, but I felt deep down inside that this was something my heart was asking me to do. For instance, during communion when I was a kid, taking the bread and wine on the first Sunday of each month, I asked my mom, “ma, when do I start taking that?” I’ve always wondered so much why was it that they got to eat a small snack and some grape juice during church time and I wasn’t allowed to. My mom would say, “you’ll learn about it soon enough and you’ll understand why.” So when I accepted Christ in my heart and said the prayer, I thought, “hey I can take the bread and wine now.” It meant so much more than just some “snack” at church. It was body and blood of Jesus Christ. He died for our sins. God sacrificed and gave his one and only beloved Son to this world. For us to have salvation and to be saved from condemnation. So as I went through high school, I didn’t know what it meant to be Christian. I didn’t understand what it was to accept Christ in our hearts. I didn’t understand that I needed to build up my relationship with God. It’s not like it was written in an instruction manual when you receive your first Bible. I’ve attempted to try and join youth groups before and the distance between where I live and the place we go to for church was far. I wasn’t able to attend it every week since my dad shifted work schedules all the time. Even with this simple obstacle, I wasn’t motivated or encouraged to keep it going. Until I’ve reached this point in university where I met Christians like myself and truly had the chance to KNOW GOD. I remember we went to go to watch the Passion Play at my church with most of the people from CCF. It was the second time I was called to accept Christ. This time around I knew exactly what it meant. After watching that play for the third time, I cried. I never felt the full impact of what Jesus had done for my life until I started to really know Him. Once you accept Christ with all your heart and soul, you simply do this: talk to Him. Indulge yourself in prayer. Prayer is simply a way for us to be able to talk to Him. Guard your heart and place yourself in a place of worship. Sing your heart out to Him. Talk to Him alone. That’s what relationships are about anyway. There needs to be communication for ANY relationship to start. Whether it be with your friend, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your mother, your father, siblings, it doesn’t matter who it is. God wants to be able to talk us just the same. Have you ever wondered, the people in the Bible were able to HEAR GOD just as loud and clear as if I called you up on the phone and started talking. As clear as the voice that we hear from every single person we engage in conversations with. [This will definitely be talked more about in a future post].

The next part that we can learn to apply in our lives is to have a DEDICATION in CHRIST. Dedication and commitment are needed in every strong relationship. One of my friends wondered and asked me recently, why I was so committed to CCF and all the events that CUA even though I didn’t know everyone in the fellowship very well, I continued to go. It made me think and dwell on why I did continue. I believe that it was God that helped me push onward. I just had this strong desire to know. I’m a very curious person. If I am unsure of something, I will pursue and find out about it. I wanted to know God. How can we sustain a loving relationship with Him if there is no commitment? It’s the same deal with marriages or with a romantic relationship. If there’s no commitment and there’s no dedication to know each other, no willing heart to look after one another, no true meaning to the way we tell someone, “I love you,” then how can we build it up to be stronger. Dedicate your hearts to this loving relationship for it really is the love that pushed me. I’ve never felt anything like it. I have slipped sometimes in this continuing relationship with God, but I push on and really try to commit into it. What’s the point of having any sort of relationship that has no commitment and dedication? It will only end up hurting us in the end. It’s immature to just “go out” with people and say, “I love you” when it has no substance. It’s the same deal with the relationship with God. We need to place dedication and commitment into our relationship with Christ.

Lastly, we need to be able to privately minister to ourselves before we can minister to others in public. Just by writing this blog right now, I feel that I am still privately ministering to myself. It is a ministry between only me and God. In order for us to spread the love that God has shown us in our lives, we need to take time. Time is of the essence isn’t it? We only have 24 hours each day when nearly 8 or so hours is usually used up for sleep. For some of us, we have a lot less sleep, yet we are so busy with everything else that we leave no time for Him. Think about it, imagine someone telling you consistently that they have no time for you? Wouldn’t you just simply move on and not even bother with that person? God is different. He longs for us. He wants to spend time to be able to teach us about what His love is about. He wants our time to be placed in His hands. He wants us to place Him FIRST. How can we speak out about the love of God in public when we don’t know about that love first hand? Some of us wants to minister to others in public. However, when it boils down to that moment where we are given opportunities, we may not have that same love that God wants us to show and share about. So take the time to spend in private ministry with Him. Ask Him when you read a passage from the Bible, what does each verse tell me? How can I apply this to my life today? Everything that the Bible teaches us is applicable to our daily lives. We just never spend the time to spend with God so He can privately train and minister to us first. Only then can we truly share and make an impact in those around us. I feel that I am still in the stage of private ministry. Even if I do involve myself in public events, I still need to prepare myself. I need to prepare my heart for Him first before I can be prepared for others.

So I leave you with this challenge. Gauge yourself and ask yourself where am I in this relationship? Have I started it? Have I accepted Christ in my life? Do I need to place more dedication and commitment to this? Should I minister and spend more time with Him first? I humbly pray that you would read this and truly open your heart and seek God in your life just as I have and still am doing today.

God Bless!! There will be more to come because God never ceases to make me wonder and think of His unfailing love for us.